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Summer Visit - 2013 - SHIPs

The summer visit to Caltech is 3-4 days long and is the only time during the year of work when all the participants on the team come together in person to work intensively on the data. Generally, each educator may bring up to two students to the summer visit that are paid for by NITARP, and they may raise funds to bring two more. The teams work at Caltech; the summer visit typically includes a half-day tour of JPL, which is a favorite site for group photos. Reload to see a different set of quotes.

The SHIPs team came to visit in June 2013. The core team educators attended, plus 9 students.

Quotes

  • [student:] The most interesting thing for me on this trip was that we were able to work with real astronomers who were doing the same research that we were.
  • [student:] I was incredibly surprised about how much computer programming I learned. Technology (especially Computer Technology) has never been my strong point but I was able to expand my knowledge and use of Python exponentially. This was completely unexpected for me and I consider it one of my proudest achievements for this trip. It was such an incredible feeling to finally get a program to work after spending a long time concentrating on it. This accomplishment was not easy for me and many times I felt frustrated. However, I then decided to approach programming with a fresh mindset: I started to think of programming as a math game or puzzle. After that, getting a program to work was like winning a game! Many times I jumped for joy after successfully making a program with my peers. I believe that this different attitude helped me gain a new appreciation and enjoyment of programming – something I never expected to happen.
  • [student:] The most interesting thing I did saw and learned during the trip to Caltech was the process of actual research. In school all projects and work has already been done. However, while doing research at Caltech, we were researching new information that hasn't been touched on before. The researchers and presenters provided great information on the research at hand and also on how to conduct the real scientific research.
  • [student:] But, I didn't think programming would be such a big part of scientific research, simply because the two are never really associated with one another in science classes at school, so I was happy to discover its importance in the field.
  • [student:] it .. is such an incredible feeling to be doing real research that matters and to solve an unanswered question. All my life, in every science class I’ve been in, the result of an experiment or project has always been known. I know that if I ask my teacher a question, he or she will know the answer. For the first time in my life, the answer is unknown and I am helping to solve it.

Related Teams

Summer Visit - 2013 - SHIPs